Why the Pain?
by Colemet Milinia
Summary: In all our lives, there's pain. But there's just one question- why? These are my ideas on it.
1. Internal

Why the Pain? 

Ok, so I'm a strong Christian. I believe in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ more than anything in the whole world.

I tend to get a lot of questions about Christianity and all of the aspects about it. Which is fine with me. I love sharing God's love with everyone I meet.

I try to answer the questions as best I can. I don't know everything, so I don't have all of the answers. But there is one question that I get more than others. It comes in many forms and can be answered many ways. But it can be summed up in 3 words.

Why the pain?

Like I said, I don't have all the answers. I can only tell you what I know, what I've learned over the years and what I have figured out.

People think God allows pain because He doesn't care. But just because there's pain in the world doesn't mean God doesn't love us. It doesn't mean that at all. Because he really loves us. For forever and for eternity.

But I think there are a lot of things that cause pain. But there's one thing that causes everything bad in this world: sin.

Sin. It's an awful thing, really. But over all time, it's caused so many awful things. And you know what they say. One thing leads to another.

That's very true. Over time, one sin led to another. And it never turns out good.

Hurt and pain in our lives trace all the way back to the beginning with Adam and Eve. In the beginning, when God created everything, from the ants on the ground, to the leaves on the trees to Adam and Eve, he only gave them one command: DO NOT eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But they defied Him. They ate from the tree and fell into temptation. Thus, sin was born.

Have you ever noticed that when you or someone lies, a lot of times another lie is told to cover it up. See? It snowballs. One lie leads to another. And it eventually gets out of control. That's what happened with sin altogether.

When Adam and Eve sinned, it put imperfection into the world. They destroyed God's perfect world. We're all sinners.

This is where pain comes in. See, we all mess up. We all do things we wish we hadn't. We all have regrets. With knowing that, how much wrong we've done, it can make you feel pretty rotten.

Saying all of those "What if..."s is pretty painful. A lot of times, we feel sad or mad or just down. It's a painful experience. You can even get depressed.

But there's a way out of this pain. And it's through repentance. Sin causes that internal pain that makes you feel so sad that you want to scream. The way out is through Jesus.

Jesus died on the cross to save us. Through Him, our sins can be forgiven. You just need to ask Him to forgive you and you have to want to do better.

"_For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that all who believe in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16 _

If you really mean what you're asking and really want to do better, God will forgive you. After all, He forgave Adam and Eve, and they did the only thing God told them not to do.

"_The Lord God made Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them." Genesis 3:21_

This doesn't exactly sound like a redemption verse, but when you think about it, it is.

Adam and Eve ate from a tree that caused them to know good and evil, so now they knew they weren't wearing clothes. But God gave them clothes. God could've left them there in their shame for sinning. But He didn't. He forgave them and gave them clothes. It's a wonderful thing, having such a merciful God.

So I believe that the internal pain a lot of people feel, the one that makes them feel rotten beyond rotten, is caused by sin.

I believe that the pain can be lifted through Jesus Christ. I believe this through my own personal testimony. I hope you can find the lifting of this pain the way I did.


	2. External

In the world today, you hear all kinds of stories on the news and radio. You hear of shootings, drunk driving accidents, (to be blunt) rape, abuse, and more. There is so much pain in the world, in our lives. People get hurt all the time. People often wonder if there's truly a God because of this. A lot of times, people argue this. _Why would a loving God allow His people to suffer?_

See, God doesn't want us to suffer. He wants us to be happy. But people bring in the misconception that God Himself brings pain on people. That's untrue.

God loves us. He loves us so much that it's beyond our understanding. So why on earth would He want us to suffer and be in pain? I'll give you a hint.

He doesn't.

Ah yes. God doesn't want us to suffer. But then this question arises; why do we then?

Have you ever noticed, most forms of physical suffering is brought on by other people? Assault, abuse, murders, and more. They're all brought on by humans, not God.

Then people say again, _Why does God let others hurt me/someone else then? _

You see, as God's creations, He gave us free will. As humans, we have been given the right to do as we please. Only when people abuse that privilege do people truly get hurt.

Adam and Eve were created perfect. God even gave them free will, with only one command. Since they disobeyed that command, they caused sin to be born. They had the free will and they abused the privilege they had. See how much hurt came out of that? All the sin that's in the world today is caused by our ignorance of our free will. We ignore it and abuse the privilege. That's when we tend to hurt others.

Then people say, _Well, why doesn't God just stop them from doing it?_

Think about that for a minute. If God just stopped that, what would have to happen? God would have to take away our free will. He doesn't want to do that. Why would He have given us free will in the first place if He didn't want us to have it?

God gave us free will to be able to think independently as his creatures. He wanted us to be free thinking, not just some robots that did what He said all the time. I'm very thankful for my free will. But, unfortunately, free will came with a price, one a lot are not willing to pay. It's a sad thing to think about, how people can intentionally hurt others because of our free will, but it's a very unfortunate fact of life. We're all sinners and we all do it, sometimes. That's why I believe my Salvation and repentance is very important.

Another thing that people think about is _Well, what about cancer and things like that?_

Obviously, cancer is not caused by human beings (unless you count it when it's possibly genetic, but you know what I mean…). So why would God allow cancer to happen.

I had a case of cancer in my family, so I know what it feels like to have that in your life. I would find myself constantly wondering why God would let that happen. Eventually, my relative passed away from the disease. And then I further wondered why.

To be honest, I don't really know why God would let people have cancer. Cancer is caused when cells mutate, unregulated cell growth. Sometimes I think that these things may have been necessary to the human race for one reason or another. I really don't know, but I do know God has His reasons for everything, some known and some unknown. Maybe we could just classify it as unknown.

…

In conclusion, I don't see pain in our lives as a way God punishes us. I see it more as a way that He makes us stronger. But despite all the pain we face, no matter what it is, God still does, always has, and always will love us and care about us unconditionally.

"_See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world did not know us is that it did not know Him." -1 John 3:1_


End file.
